Actor Jack Lemmon's son, Chris, had a big reason to be thankful this Thanksgiving: a new set of lungs

Kris Grant photo

Just 11 days before his Nov. 20 lung transplant, actor Chris Lemmon, left, was with Leonard Maltin, and Carlos Amezcua, r, on the set at KUSI TV where they talked about the Nov. 9-12 Coronado Island Film Festival. Two days later, Lemmon fell ill and ended up in intensive care.

Just 11 days before his Nov. 20 lung transplant, actor Chris Lemmon, left, was with Leonard Maltin, and Carlos Amezcua, r, on the set at KUSI TV where they talked about the Nov. 9-12 Coronado Island Film Festival. Two days later, Lemmon fell ill and ended up in intensive care. (Kris Grant photo)

Chris Lemmon was MIA when he was to join Leonard Maltin on stage at the Coronado film festival Nov. 11 to accept an award on behalf of his late father, actor Jack Lemmon.

Lemmon had appeared on KUSI TV early Friday, Nov. 9, had spoken to Coronado High School students that afternoon and had conducted a “lunch with Chris Lemmon” chat at the film festival on Saturday. On the evening of Sunday, Nov. 11, though, festival founder Doug St. Denis announced he had suffered an unexpected health setback.

That turned out to be an understatement. Lemmon was transferred to the intensive care unit at UC San Diego Health. He had fallen ill while walking to a festival event and returned to his hotel room. “It hit me like a baseball bat across the forehead,” said Lemmon, who suffers from a lung condition called IPF, ideopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

“Very often with this disease you do a nose-dive. It can be extremely severe and happen almost instantly,” he said Monday from his hospital room. He related it to a plane with an engine failure. “I just crashed.”

Lemmon needed an immediate double lung transplant.

“I started to go into a serious decline,” said the actor, 64, who has appeared in more than 20 films, including three with his dad, and numerous TV shows. He recalled waking up, intubated, in the hospital room. “I said to Gina (his wife), ‘I’m so sorry. I tried.’ Then I pretty much died.”

But he didn’t die because, miraculously, a doctor appeared and announced a set of lungs had become available.

Lemmon had his transplant, led by surgeons Eugene Golts and Scott Chicotka, two days before Thanksgiving. He awoke the next day and even took a walk. “I feel like a million bucks,” Lemmon said Monday. “They saved my life… I am not even on oxygen anymore.”

Courtesy photo

Actor Chris Lemmon, shown with his nurse Brian McClaughlin, was walking only a day after his double lung transplant at UC San Diego Health on Nov. 20. "They saved my life," Lemmon said. "I decided to write a second memoir about this and the young gentleman who gave me his lungs."

Actor Chris Lemmon, shown with his nurse Brian McClaughlin, was walking only a day after his double lung transplant at UC San Diego Health on Nov. 20. "They saved my life," Lemmon said. "I decided to write a second memoir about this and the young gentleman who gave me his lungs." (Courtesy photo)

After being an official spokesperson for the American Cancer Society, Lemmon now has a new cause — organ donation. While he doesn’t know the identity of his lung donor, he was told it was a young man who succumbed to an aneurysm.

“I can never thank him enough for giving me the gift of life. It’s such an incredible gift. Everyone should be an organ donor. I am. I always have been.”

Now he wants to tell the world about his experience. In 2006, Lemmon wrote a book, “A Twist of Lemmon," about his Oscar-winning father. Now Chris and his son, Jonathan, are going to team up to write “Noble: The Gift of Life.”

Coincidentally, Lemmon had been winding up a worldwide tour of his “Twist of Lemmon” show in which he performs scenes from 12 of his father’s movies.

“Isn’t it interesting that this other project landed in my lap out of the blue...I really do believe this entire journey was fate driven... I’ve never believed more that there’s some stuff, some angels, watching over us. When we need them, they’re there. I know my mother and father were with me. I know it.”

Lemmon said it broke his heart not to be at the festival awards ceremony. But he said Gina, along with his three adult children, Sydney, Chris Jr. and Jonathan, stepped up to the plate. “They really represented ‘Grampa Jack’ great. I think he was smiling broadly at these incredible kids and this incredible woman I married.”

Lemmon is happy to take the necessary regimen of anti-rejection drugs and to get an apartment close to his UC San Diego medical team for monitoring over the next 12 months. “I am very excited about being a La Jolla resident for a year,” he said.

Plus, he plans to return to the Coronado film festival next fall to make up for his missed “Taste of Lemmon” performance. “I promised to do the show, and I will. I now have new lungs,” he said.